the true-min show

I watched the second half of the film The Truman Show this morning, and I was captivated by it. It's very good; I'll have to watch it from beginning to end one of these days. It got me thinking of the frequent manipulations that must go on during the so-called 'reality shows.' Mind you, I really enjoy watching reality shows!

One of my favorite contrived scenes is when a television camera is placed inside a home and facing the front door for when someone pays an 'unannounced' visit. "Tim, how are you? What a surprise!" (An additional line might be: "So the camera crew is with you?")

Another scene that comes to mind is when one of the professional dancers of a competition show brought his celebrity partner to a large decorated room, and explained to her that he wanted to help her celebrate the prom that she was missing. Uh... yeah, as if he blew up all of the balloons himself, hung each of the decorations, etc. Touching, but still.

I even remember that years ago, the producer of one of the reality shows admitted that some scenes were filmed with stand-ins, such as the long-range shots of the canoes moving towards the shore. It really doesn't bother me all that much, but it does serve to remind oneself that these shows aren't necessarily reality. Unscripted (for the most part) yes, but reality? That's open to debate, but they are distinct from scripted shows.

And these reality shows impress me with how invisible they coordinate their multitudes of cameras to be - there must be enough cameras to capture enough interesting footage, yet one rarely sees any of them in the background. Wow - how do they do it? And I imagine that the participants must be told at the beginning of filming that the less they look at the cameras and acknowledge their existence, the better. All to create the feeling that we are invisible observers. Very well done.